"The merger and acquisition activity that began flowing through the market in 2009 continued in 2015, with more than 30 notable acquisitions, Julian Poulter, research director at Gartner. "This has resulted in increased competition at the top end of the CRM market, with the continued focus of global vendors' sales forces driving good growth worldwide in all CRM subsegments but only for cloud or software as a service (SaaS) applications.”

Overall, the top five CRM software vendors accounted for more than 45% of the total market in 2015. The top five vendors had very little change in ranking compared with 2014, although Adobe jumped into the fifth position, displacing IBM, as it continues to lead the CRM marketing segment with a focus on...

ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) forecasts global revenues of aftermarket mobile accessories to top $110 billion in 2021. Aftermarket Bluetooth headsets for smartphones will grow the fastest, in terms of both revenue and shipments, with shipments expected to show a 9% compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2020, per the research group.

"Bluetooth stereo headset shipments are rising steadily, and Apple's rumored decision to remove the headphone jack from its new iPhone only further supports our belief that mobile accessory manufacturers will largely focus on Bluetooth audio listening in the near future," says Marina Lu, Senior Analyst at ABI Research. "Wired headsets are also showing strong growth, as consumers usually have to buy additional headsets for their smartphones."

Technavio (www.technavio.com) analysts forecast the global cloud-based virtual learning platform market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 25% through 2020. highlight the following four factors that are contributing to the growth of the global cloud-based virtual learning platform market:

° Innovation in cloud computing;

° Performance improvement of users;

° Emphasis on provision of continuous support;

° Reduction in operating cost

According to Jhansi Mary, a lead analyst at Technavio for education technology research, “Technology innovations in cloud computing have strengthened the accessibility of content and functioning of software and tools.” For instance, evolution in data centers in the last few years has enabled them to offer computing facilities to enhance data processing and storage. They offer high-performance servers, networking equipment, storage arrays, and...

The Spy spotted an article this month (which he won't loan credibility by providing a link) suggesting Apple was becoming the next Blackberry, doomed to fail because it is falling behind the times. Perhaps so, but that doom seems a long time off yet.

The good news is that WWDC, upcoming in two weeks, is likely to see a plethora of incremental upgrade announcements to please the faithful (though the Spy is giving it a pass again this year, as he's not expecting any blockbusters). Here's his list, in order of likelihood:

° New editions of both iOS and (rebranded) macOS (guaranteed);

° Incremental updates to Swift and Siri (almost certain);

° New products and alliances in medical, home automation (a must to retain a foothold);

Global unit shipments of smart city devices, which are internet-connected devices used in smart city projects, will increase from 115.4 million in 2015 to 1.2 billion in 2025. Although in 2015 North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific each received approximately one-third of unit shipments, the Asia-Pacific region will receive over half of all device shipments by 2025, according to IHS Inc. (www.ihs.com), a global source of critical information and insight.

“Unit shipments of smart city devices to Asia Pacific will increase more than shipments to other regions for two main reasons,” said Roz Euan-Smith, senior analyst, smart cities, for IHS Technology. “First, the region’s large population is increasingly moving to cities, which are straining under the increased pressure and demand for resources, creating a clear need for smart city development. Second, several national governments in the region have announced smart city...

In its annual survey of high net worth business owners (www.ustrust.com/survey), U.S. Trust found that business ownership can be challenging, but most entrepreneurs wouldn’t consider any other line of work and have personally invested themselves and their families in their businesses. While there are distinct differences between younger and older owners, entrepreneurs of all ages share a strong desire to control their own destiny.

The study of 242 high net worth business owners with at least $3 million in investable assets, part of the 2016 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth survey, found what worries entrepreneurs most is what they don’t have control of: the unknown impact of the 2016 presidential election and a breach in cybersecurity, both of which could have significant implications for their business and personal financial interests.

According to the new “Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide” from International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics will grow from nearly $122 billion in 2015 to more than $187 billion in 2019, an increase of more than 50% over the five-year forecast period. The new Spending Guide expands on IDC's previous forecasts by offering greater revenue detail by technology, industry, and geography.

The services-related opportunity will account for more than half of all big data and business analytics revenue for most of the forecast period, with IT Services generating more than three times the annual revenues of Business Services, according to IDC (www.idc.com). Software will be the second largest category, generating more than $55 billion in revenues in 2019. Nearly half of these revenues will come from purchases of End-User Query, Reporting, and Analysis Tools and...

Technavio (www.technavio.com) is forecasting positive growth for many segments of the publishing and advertising market over the next four years as several markets, including mobile ad spending, programmatic ads, and advertising display, will witness an increase in revenues.

A rapid increase in the number of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has compelled advertisers to choose mobile advertising over other forms of advertising. Recently, it has been observed that many service providers have developed tools for programmatic advertising and real-time bidding. These tools allow app developers and advertisers to monetize customer usage by displaying relevant ads, according to Technavio.

These ads are customized based on data regarding the customer's mobile usage, location, and search keywords acquired from cookies embedded in apps and web pages. Technavio market research analysts predict the...

A survey shows cybersecurity fears about breaches, identity theft, and privacy violations are taking a severe toll on the public trust and online commerce.

On May 13, the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released more analysis of its 2015 survey of 41,000 Americans on the topic of online security and privacy. As Violet Blue (@violetblue) summed it up in a post on Peerlyst (https://www.peerlyst.com), "Trust in digital security is flatlining.”

The Engadget journalist and author goes on to say, "We're talking about a huge dent in online commerce and the free flow of information, simply because people don't trust online companies anymore. It's not a growing digital economy we're in, it's a shrinking one.”

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 349 million units in the first quarter of 2016, a 3.9% increase over the same period in 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). Smartphone sales represented 78% of total mobile phone sales in the first quarter of 2016, notes the research group.

Sales were driven by demand for low-cost smartphones in emerging markets and for affordable 4G smartphones, led by 4G connectivity promotion plans from communications service providers (CSPs) in many markets worldwide.

"In a slowing smartphone market where large vendors are experiencing growth saturation, emerging brands are disrupting existing brands' long-standing business models to increase their share," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "With such changing smartphone market dynamics, Chinese brands are emerging as the new top global brands. Two Chinese brands ranked within the top five...

Transitioning to a public cloud is a slow-moving process for most businesses, according to a new study by Softchoice, a managed services provider. The study, The State of Cloud Readiness, found that while progress is at hand, 61%of organizations are still experimenting with or have limited use of public cloud and less than 14% consider public cloud to be an internal corporate standard.

"Today, moving to the cloud is no longer a question of if, but when," said David MacDonald, President and CEO at Softchoice (http://www.softchoice.com). "However, many organizations are stuck in endless pilots or are hesitant to migrate to the public cloud in a meaningful way because they lack the strategy, skillsets and governance structures to build and maintain a fully realized cloud solution.”

The State of Cloud Readiness surveyed 250 senior IT decision-makers and 250 line of business managers across the U.S....

Intel Security has released findings from its new study, “Online Security Diet: You Are What You Click,” which examines the online behaviors and attitudes of Americans ages 21 to 54 toward dieting clickbait. The research revealed that when it comes to the desire for the ideal body, people may be willing to sacrifice their online security if it takes them a step closer to achieving desired results.

With the summer season approaching, May is a popular month to start a new diet routine, and people are turning online for quick solutions. Thanks to better weather, more hours of sunlight and planned vacations, consumers have more opportunities to be active, which kick-starts a new wave of diets long after New Year’s resolutions come to an end.

“Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly savvy at understanding the seasonality of consumer search habits and exploiting that information to their full potential,” said Gary Davis, chief consumer security evangelist at Intel Security...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 2% of U.S. broadband households, or 2.3 million households, own a virtual reality headset. The research firm’s survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households reveals 5% of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a VR headset in 2016, an increase from only 1% who made a purchase the year prior.

"The big change in VR for 2016 has been the availability or pending availability of VR headsets from companies such as Facebook (Oculus Rift), Google (Google Cardboard), and HTC (Vive). Sony PlayStation VR is expected to be released in October. We expect gamers to be the initial market for VR," said Barbara Kraus, Director of Research, Parks Associates. "VR is an immersive experience, and more is better for gamers - more immersion, better sound, better graphics, and more players. The mass market is more likely to adopt mobile VR, which will be less...

Canalys (www.canalys.com) predicts vendors will ship 6.3 million virtual reality (VR) headsets worldwide in 2016, of which 40% will be in China.

VR has the potential to thrive in the country and the research group believes competition will be fierce this year. Barriers to enter the VR market have been lowered. Local vendors are releasing VR headsets that overcome the quality and performance issues of simple viewers, such as Samsung’s Gear VR and Google’s Cardboard.

“The competition is around the user experience, hardware quality and content,” says Canalys Analyst Jason Low. “Currently, there isn’t a clear leader for VR content in China. Local content providers, game publishers and service providers are racing to exercise their influence on the development of VR beyond hardware. Numerous Chinese vendors are exhibiting their VR headsets at CES Asia 2016 this week. Attendees are willing to suffer long queues...

A consumer survey conducted by leading mobile commerce analyst firm Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found near universal satisfaction amongst UK mobile banking users, with 98% of those surveyed stating that they were “very happy” or “quite happy” with their service.

However, the survey also found that with mobile access now perceived as a key pillar of a bank’s offering, 31% of mobile banking users would consider changing banks if they had a bad experience with their service. In the US it was much less of a concern, where users display similar levels of satisfaction with the service, but only 16% of respondents would consider leaving their current bank – suggesting that the mobile platform is less critical to their banking experience.

According to the survey, while 70% of UK respondents now use mobile banking services, a lack of trust in online services remains a key barrier to...

New data from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that the value of online fraudulent transactions is expected to reach $25.6 billion by 2020, up from $10.7 billion last year. This means that by the end of the decade, $4 in every $1,000 of online payments will be fraudulent.

The new study identified three hot areas for online fraud: eRetail (65% of fraud by value in 2020 - $16.6 billion); banking (27% - $6.9 billion); and airline ticketing (6% - $1.5 billion). The study also claimed that eRetail would be particularly susceptible to online fraud, with the value of fraud in this sector increasing at twice that of banking and seven times that of airline ticketing.

Juniper Research says that, although banks are able to counter online banking fraud by deploying new technologies such as 3D-Secure and device fingerprinting, these measures often only provide temporary respite as...

New Parks Associates research (www.parksassociates.com) hows that 23% of U.S. smartphone owners also own a smart home device and over three-fourths of those consumers use their smartphone, tablet, or PC to control their smart home devices at least once per month.

"Purchase intentions for smart home devices among U.S. broadband households more than doubled in less than two years, going from 21% in early 2014 to nearly 50% at the end of 2015," said Stuart Sikes, president, Parks Associates. "Safety and security are the main drivers for consumer interest, and we see, once smart home products are in the home, consumers quickly develop habits with these devices. Usage varies based on device, but among owners of most safety and security devices, 40-50% control or monitor these products on a daily basis.”

Age and income are key demographics in the current early adopter market, he added. Mass-market...

While liquid crystal display (LCD) technology is still the dominant technology in the display industry, AMOLED display shipments will grow 40% year-over-year year, to reach 395 million units in 2016. AMOLED display revenue is expected to increase by 25 percent, to reach $15 billion in 2016, according to IHS (www.ihs.com).

“AMOLED is becoming the shiniest spot in the flat-panel display industry,” said David Hsieh, senior director, displays at the research group. “AMOLED has a simpler structure than LCD, as well as a thinner and lighter form factor, better color saturation, greater contrast ratio, faster response time and easier integration with touch functions. In addition, AMOLED is formed on a polymer base...

Seventy-six percent (76%) of consumers who use digital health tools say their health apps/devices have made them healthier. And 59% of consumers who use digital health tools use them at least once per day.

Another 57% responded that using digital health tools has helped to lower their healthcare costs. The results are based on a March HealthMine (www.healthmine.com) survey of 500 insured consumers who use mobile/internet-connected health tools.

Consumers are taking more steps towards digital health. There are now nearly 165,000 health-related apps which run on Apple's iOS and Google's Android. PwC, a consulting firm, forecasts that by 2017 such apps will have been downloaded 1.7 billion times. Add to that 10 million activity trackers and 7 million smart watches shipped by the end of 2014 (ABI Research), as well as a growing crop of other internet-connected health devices. According to HealthMine's...

The proliferation and success of Bluetooth captured the imagination of the consumer, leading to increased demand for unique wireless applications, most notably home automation, location-based services, personal monitoring and tracking, and remote access control. Industry analyst ABI Research projects that over three billion Bluetooth enabled products will ship this year alone.

“Bluetooth delivers a connection that just works for consumers globally, whether they are listening to music or tracking their steps. This has led to a shift in expectations of what connectivity can be,” said Errett Kroeter, vice president of marketing for the Bluetooth SIG. “Consumers are looking to experience that same...

Business leaders looking to improve the quality of their customers’ digital experience agree they do not know where to start according to research published today by Actual Experience (www.actual-experience.com). Four out of five C-level executives know that digital experience quality is critical to business success, but more than half (55%) don’t know how to identify the issues that affect quality.

It’s vital that business leaders embrace the next phase of the digital transformation if they’re going to succeed, according to the research group. Actual Experience’s research shows that business leaders both in North America, UK and Ireland appreciate the value of consistent digital experience quality (89% agree it’s crucial to company success over the next two years). However, they claim their biggest barriers to improving digital experience quality are identifying the specific quality issues that...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds 47% of U.S. broadband households are concerned their private information stored on connected devices could be made public.

Another 47% are worried companies will sell their personal information. Both findings present challenges for companies as they look to leverage connected product data to enhance the consumer experience and deepen engagement.

"Nearly 50% of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a smart home product in 2016, and two-thirds already have at least one Internet-connected entertainment device," said Stuart Sikes, president, Parks Associates. "The data generated by these devices can extend the product lifecycle and open many new value propositions to consumers. In this webcast, we will discuss the best ways to use data in the expanding consumer IoT environment and how to alleviate consumer concerns so that they...

Worldwide spending on Internet of Things (IoT) security will reach $348 million in 2016, a 23.7% increase from 2015 spending of $281.5 million, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

Spending on IoT security is expected to reach $547 million in 2018, adds the research group. Although overall spending will initially be moderate, Gartner predicts that IoT security market spending will increase at a faster rate after 2020, as improved skills, organizational change and more scalable service options improve execution.

"The market for IoT security products is currently small but it is growing as both consumers and businesses start using connected devices in ever greater numbers," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. "Gartner forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 11.4 billion by 2018. However, considerable variation...

The steep downward trajectory in national customer satisfaction continues, as the free fall of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reaches the two-year mark. The aggregate ACSI (theacsi.org) score for the fourth quarter of 2015 is down 0.5 percent to 73.4 on a 100-point scale, its lowest score in a decade after eight consecutive quarters of decline.

“Consumer spending and retail sales in the fourth quarter were disappointing but actually predictable, given the extended weakening of customer satisfaction and lack of wage growth,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI chairman and founder. “Unless both wages and customer satisfaction improve, consumer demand is not likely to pick up enough to lift the economy from its sluggish pace of growth.”

The cause of the sustained decline in customer satisfaction is unclear, though it does coincide with a weakening of corporate earnings and with a reduction in unemployment. When unemployment is high, the job market is more...

Worldwide shipments of virtual reality (VR) hardware will skyrocket in 2016, with total volumes reaching 9.6 million units, according to IDC. Led by key products from Samsung, Sony, HTC, and Oculus, the category should generate hardware revenues of approximately $2.3 billion in 2016, adds the research group.

While VR will drive nearly all of the hardware volume in 2016, Augmented Reality (AR) hardware is forecast to ramp up over the next few years. According to the first worldwide AR/VR forecast from IDC, the combined device markets will see hardware shipments surge past 110 million units in 2020.

IDC has identified three major device categories across the augmented and virtual reality markets. They include: screenless viewers that use the screen of specific smartphones to drive an AR/VR experience (example: Samsung Gear VR); tethered head mounted displays (HMDs) that utilize an existing compute device such as a PC, game console, or even a smartphone to drive a head-...

With consumers becoming increasingly comfortable using smartphones and tablet PCs, touch screens are now increasingly making their way into their vehicles, too. In fact, the automotive touch panel market is expected to expand from 28 million units shipped in 2013 to 86 million in 2021, according to IHS Inc. (www.ihs.com), the leading global source of critical information and insight.

“Projected capacitive touch technology is commonly found in consumer smartphones and tablets, which consumers have grown very comfortable using,” said Shoko Oi, senior display analyst at IHS Technology. “Although there are concerns about how direct touch operations could affect safety while driving, automotive touch panels are becoming a standard feature in new vehicles coming to market.”

The content shown on automotive displays now comes from a variety of sources, both inside and outside the car. Many of these applications require...

The Apple haters and doomsayers will slither from beneath their rocks in force now that Apple has suffered its first quarterly year-over-year decline in revenue in 13 years. No company can grow its sales indefinitely, so this day had to come. Mind, the company still had revenues of over $50 billion, so it's not about to become a corporate food bank client. This does mark a watershed for the iPhone business, however, as it may indicate, if not market saturation, at least a flattening of the growth curve--not just for Apple but for the whole sector.

Is this "a cloud the size of a man's hand" on the horizon? Only if Apple abdicates its technology leadership role and fails to introduce yet another iconic game changing product. What of the second AppleTV and the Apple Watch? The Spy says "yawn". Both entered an already crowded market--one to which neither contributes significantly, much less redefines. Moreover, watches...

CEOs have underlined that growth will be their top business priority for 2016, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

The 2016 Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey found that despite indications that the global economy is struggling in early 2016, CEOs don’t plan to significantly change their priorities. After growth (54%), the second and third business priorities are customers (31%) and workforce (27%). The Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey of 400 senior business leaders in user organizations worldwide was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015, asking questions about 2016/2017.

Most responding organizations were those with annual revenue of $1 billion or more. The survey results show that while business conditions are challenging, CEOs remain confident enough to sanction strategic investments, particularly when it comes to digital business...

Apteligent (www.apteligent.com) and analyst firm, STL group, have put together a report quantifying the customer “app experience” on 27 mobile networks in 7 countries. The findings on U.S. carrier providers was especially surprising considering analysts and market observers often cite the U.S. as a mobile market that has achieved higher broadband prices owing to its operators’ network investment.

So how do U.S. carriers Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T measure up?

° All four of the major US mobile operators are in the bottom half of the ranking table.

Organizations are far less willing than their employees to adopt agile working methods and are missing out on the benefits such as earlier delivery of projects and return on investment, according to a new global survey published by AXELOS (www.axelos.com).

The survey of more than 2,400 professionals found that more than three-quarters (81%) of respondents – across all job roles and industry sectors surveyed – now see value in working in an agile way. In fact, the appetite to use agile methods among individual professionals is on average 37% greater than their employer’s.

The lack of appetite among organizations for agile working exists despite the finding that people in senior management roles were among the most enthusiastic for it, with 83% acknowledging its value. AXELOS’ research also showed how more professionals with a PRINCE2 certification than those without see the value of agile working...

With contactless payments increasing in popularity, MWR InfoSecurity (www.mwrinfosecurity.com) has today warned consumers to be aware of the dangers from contactless cards. It also issued a reminder to retailers and banks that not all fraudulent card theft is the fault of the card owner and more needs to be done to thwart scammers.

MWR has developed an application that uses NFC (near field communication) to read the information stored in the contactless chip embedded in credit and debit cards. Google Play currently has a number of similar apps available via its store that claim to do the same thing, plus the source code isn’t too difficult to find.

Explaining the process MWR senior research consultant, Nick Walker explained: “Brushing past someone, the app sends a signal to the chip in the card to query the data stored. Depending on the card type will determine just what information is...

More than 80% of banks surveyed recognize that online and mobile banking channels improve customer engagement, and 93% of banks expect customer satisfaction to improve if a high quality video banking service were to be implemented.

A newly released research report, co-sponsored by Efma (www.efma.com), a not-for-profit association of 3,300 retail financial services companies in more than 130 countries and Vidyo, Inc. (www.vidyo.com), which specializes in video collaboration, aims to bring clarity to the role that video banking plays in the digital transformation of banks. The research results uncovered massive support for video banking among financial organizations worldwide, with nearly 80% of all banks planning to offer video-enabled banking services. The research from Vidyo and Efma also found:

Will mobile apps that are cheaper and easier to develop convince more small businesses to have them? Not necessarily, according to a new survey by Clutch (https://clutch.co), an app development research firm.

While nearly 50% of small businesses indicate they plan to have a mobile app within the next few years, over 30% still have no intention to do so. Industry experts, however, say that attitude will likely change as more small businesses watch the trend of mobile app adoption grow and are forced to have an app in order to stay competitive.

"Many small businesses don't even consider building a mobile app, but this is changing fast, with more and more traffic coming from mobile devices," says Viktor Marohnic, CEO of the mobile app creator Shoutem. "Three years ago, a small business might see 10% of its total traffic coming from mobile, but right now it's closer to 70%. Within the next couple of years, a shift...

According to the latest market research report by Technavio (www.technavio.com), the global data center colocation market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 12% until 2020. To calculate the market size, Technavio researchers have considered revenues garnered from sales of new units in leading geographies.

“Accessing information stored in a data center involves the use of many devices. A robust networking solution is required to offer high-availability services. During the forecast period, a growing need for digitalization will enable processing of application workloads on servers with cross-platform support,” said Rakesh Panda, one of Technavio’s lead industry analysts for data center research.

He adds: “The use of cloud-based services and big data analytics is growing rapidly. Also, increasing digitalization has resulted in a significant rise in the amount of enterprise...

According to the International Data Corp. (www.idc.com) total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for deployment in cloud environments will increase by 18.9% in 2016 to reach $38.2 billion.

This amount excludes double counting between storage and server, adds the research group. In comparison, spending on enterprise IT infrastructure deployed in traditional, non-cloud, environments will decline by 4% in 2016, but will still account for the largest share, 62.8%, of end user spending. Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure will grow by 11.1% year over year to $13.9 billion geared toward on-premises private cloud deployments. Spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will increase by 14.1% in 2016 to $24.4 billion.

From a geographic perspective, investments in cloud IT infrastructure will grow across all regions. As cloud service providers continue to expand their...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology concept that is currently transforming and redefining virtually all markets and industries in fundamental ways. In fact, IHS forecasts that the IoT market will grow from an installed base of 15.4 billion devices in 2015 to 30.7 billion devices in 2020 and 75.4 billion in 2025, according to “IoT Platforms: Enabling the Internet of Things” a new white paper available as a free download from IHS Inc. (www.ihs.com), a global source of critical information and insight.

An important sign of the fundamental significance of the IoT concept is that most major information and communication technology vendors are now strategically developing IoT offerings, adds IHS. Companies that sit at the heart of the telecom, networking, industrial infrastructure, enterprise system, and cloud computing sectors are now offering platforms to facilitate the broader economy’s transformation to pervasive...

Network entertainment applications are the stepping stone to a broader home Internet of Things (IoT) experience, even as consumers remain skeptical of the value proposition behind the home Internet of Things, wary of their cost and uncertain of their utility, according to a recent survey of U.S. consumers by International Data Corporation (www.idc.com).

About 28% of people who own a home network stream online videos to their televisions, and they are much more likely to express high interest in and adoption of home IoT applications than other home network owners, notes the research group. What’s more, one out of five people who use home automation, monitoring and control devices say their home IoT applications solved a problem they didn't know they had. The majority of consumers, however, remain skeptical of the value proposition behind the home Internet of Things and are holding back for a higher overall value proposition...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 65% of U.S. broadband households with a security system plan to buy a smart home device in the next 12 months.

"Nearly 20% of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart home device, and over one-half of these device owners also have a security system," said Stuart Sikes, president, Parks Associates. "Security households, rather than being content with their current system, have a proclivity to add more smart features to their home. Companies need to use this insight to capitalize on the growing demand for connected devices in the home.”

Smart home solutions are available to consumers through multiple sales channels. Parks Associates' data shows 70% of U.S. security dealers currently install some type of interactive smart home device or system within their residential offerings or plan to do so within the next 12 months...

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.49 trillion in 2016, a decline of 0.5% over 2015 spending of $3.5 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc (www.gartner.com). This is down from last quarter's forecast of 0.5%. The change in the forecast is mainly due to currency fluctuations, says the research group.

"There is an undercurrent of economic uncertainty that is driving organizations to tighten their belts, and IT spending is one of the casualties," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. "Concurrently, the need to invest in IT to support digital business is more urgent than ever. Business leaders know that they need to become digital businesses or face irrelevance in a digital world. To make that happen, leaders are engaging in tough cost optimization efforts in some areas to fund digital business in others.”

Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $334.8 billion in 2015, a 2.3% decline from 2014, according to final results by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The combined revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors fell by 0.5% during 2015, according to the research group.

This was a better performance than the rest of the market, however, which saw a 6.9% revenue decline. The top 25 vendors accounted for 73.5% of the market, down slightly from 74% in 2014.

"The worldwide semiconductor market declined in 2015 as slowing demand for key applications combined with strong currency fluctuations to subdue the market," said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner. "2015 saw a mixed performance by the different device categories, unlike 2014 when all categories posted positive growth. Nonoptical sensors performed best due to increased usage of fingerprint sensors in smartphones, while discretes saw the...

The wireless charging receiver market grew more than 160% in 2015 over the previous year, as annual global shipments reached 144 million units.

Integrated receivers hit mainstream devices, and refinements to system design and diversification for various applications and power ratings is now driving the development of the technology. Annual shipment volume is expected to top one billion units by 2020 and two billion by 2025, according to IHS (www.ihs.com), a source of critical information and insight.

The mobile phone market remains the dominant force in overall shipments, led by the Samsung Galaxy smartphone series, which comes equipped with dual-mode Qi and Power-Matters-Alliance- (PMA-) certified low-frequency charging retained for this year’s S7 model. IHS forecasts that 10% of smartphones shipped this year will be capable of wireless charging.

As consumer preferences and habits for smartphone usage continue to shift, millennials are driving the increased usage of video calling as a preferred application among smartphone users.

In fact, according to The NPD Group’s (www.npdgroup.com) “Connected Intelligence Application and Convergence Report,” more than half (52%) of smartphone users age 18-34 say they now use their smartphones to conduct video calls, representing an increase of 10 points year-over-year. In addition to video calling, smartphone users in the 18-34 age range also cited using their device for music and shopping as well as posting and viewing videos. In fact, many of these behaviors increased in prevalence among this user segment during the prior year, too.

“Video calling, posting and watching video are more common among Millennial smartphone users than among any other age group,” noted John Buffone, executive director, Industry...

Wearable technology is evolving beyond wrist-worn devices to include shirts, tattoos, hats, shoes and more but what makes these devices useful is the actionable collected data.

A new report from Argus Insights (www.argusinsights.com) shows that consumers are much happier with their wearable devices than the apps they use to interpret the data they collect. Jawbone Up is leading delight as a great “all in one app,” but at the same time users express discontent with the Jawbone bands. Based on an analysis of over 136,000 consumer reviews of Wearables devices and applications from November 2015-February 2016, Argus Insights finds that users report higher delight for devices than brands’ associated apps.

“Clearly the app experience is affecting the long term efficacy of the wearables market,” said John Feland, CEO, Argus Insights. “Without interpretation of the data to inspire action and promote...

To calculate the market size, the research group considered unit shipments of smartphones, tablet personal computers (PCs), notebooks, smartcards, universal serial bus (USB), MP3s, and solid-state drives (SSDs) made to manufacturers.
3D NAND flash market at a glance

Technavio analysts predict the global 3D NAND flash market to grow at a fast pace during the projected period. The high market growth rate is attributed to increasing demand for high non-volatile memory in mobile devices and enterprise servers because of the following advantages: large memory storage, low power consumption, less space, and high speed.

Technavio hardware and semiconductor analysts highlight the following four factors that are...

As consumer awareness of mobile wallets has risen dramatically, financial institutions have a perfect opportunity to stake a claim in this market. As the barriers to wallet adoption drop, and issues with merchant adoption and consumer hesitation lessen, FI-branded wallets stand ready to reap the benefits.

The JAVELIN (www.javelinstrategy.com) research group has released a report and introduced JAVELIN’s S.C.O.R.E. wallet analysis model for assessing and comparing competing wallet providers. For the past two years, the consumer’s primary bank has topped the charts, as the wallet consumers would be most likely to adopt. However, as the vast majority of FIs sat on the sidelines, consumer preference has shifted. Now, PayPal (63%) and Visa (56%) have both surpassed the primary bank (51%) as the mobile wallet providers of choice.

New research from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that usage of authenticated video viewing, or TV Everywhere, reached 40% of U.S. pay-TV consumers in 2015, up from 22% in 2013. The data shows the percentage of respondents watching authenticated video at least once a month is 23%, which both broadens and deepens the online video audience for pay-TV providers.

"Content providers have been extremely aggressive in promoting their authenticated catch-up services, which is helping create traction for authenticated TV Everywhere services in the digital entertainment household," said Glenn Hower, research analyst, Parks Associates. "As usage increases, service providers and content companies alike will need to expand their big data capabilities, allowing them to create even more personalized services for their subscribers and viewers.”

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) shows that 70% of U.S. households with smart energy devices report saving money due to reduced energy consumption. However, the report also notes the difficulty of selling smart energy devices based on cost savings as 83% of U.S. broadband households do not know the price they are paying for electricity.

"Residential customers today see energy as a necessary expense, and while 62% of U.S. broadband households strongly believe that saving energy and lowering utility bills are important, getting them to pay for these benefits has proven difficult," said Eddie Accomando, research analyst, Parks Associates. "Electricity does not currently drive customer action, but as the process of energy production changes through DR, solar, and storage innovations, energy management will become a much more significant value-added service within the connected...

Parting can be tough when you've had a faithful machine for so many years. But the old model 180 was getting long in tooth and was no longer reliable. True, some of the problems were mere cosmetic scuffs, but others ranged from annoyances that had to be worked around to serious impairment of functionality.

So, when the Spy's local dealer announced an introductory (and deeply discounted) sale on a brand new (to the frozen north; they'd already been selling in the land to our south) model X380, he decided to put the suction hose on his bank account and make it "out with the old, in with the new".

On short acquaintance, the new machine is wicked fast. The combination of wider bandwidth and some 22% more horsepower appears on first blush to increase throughput by nearly fifty percent, which has always got to be an important goal of so major a technology upgrade. Moreover, operating speed adjustments are automatic; the manufacturer no longer makes the old...

Eighty-one percent of all U.S. smartphone users now stream video on their devices, according to recently released data from The NPD Group. This usage is being driven primarily by users who are 25 and younger, who spend twice as much time watching video content on YouTube and Netflix mobile apps compared to users who are over the age of 25.

As a result of this uptick in video consumption, users who are 25 and younger outperform older age groups in terms of cellular and Wi-Fi data consumption levels generated by video applications. These users consume, on average, 6.2 GB of data (cellular and Wi-Fi combined) for video streaming purposes each month, versus older smartphone users who use an average of 4.9 GB of data for video streaming monthly.

And while the majority of video streaming occurs over Wi-Fi networks, smartphone users now rely on cellular data more than ever. According to the NPD Smartmeter, an opt-in metering application that tracks live smartphone and...

The worldwide production print market increased 5.2% year over year in unit shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015 (4Q15) to approximately 10,700 units, according to the IDC (www.idc.com) research group. Unit shipment value increased 0.9% to nearly $1.3 billion in the same time period.

Six out of eight regional markets saw positive year-over-year unit growth in the production print space. Key contributors to the worldwide growth were Western Europe, which grew 10.4%, Japan (22.9%), and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (6.4%).

"While production-class technologies saw an annual dip in the fourth quarter, 2015 showed itself to be a growth year for digital technologies. Digital vendors closed out the year of 2015 with 10% gains, with the highest increase coming from color laser, followed...

Software Updates via MacUpdate

iStat Menus 6.00 - Monitor your system r...

iStat Menus lets you monitor your system right from the menubar. Included are 8 menu extras that let you monitor every aspect of your system.
Features
CPU -- Monitor cpu usage. 7 display modes,... Read more

Airfoil 5.6.4 - Send audio from any app...

Airfoil allows you to send any audio to AirPort Express units, Apple TVs, and even other Macs and PCs, all in sync! It's your audio - everywhere.
With Airfoil you can take audio from any... Read more

Hazel 4.2 - Create rules for organizing...

Hazel is your personal housekeeper, organizing and cleaning folders based on rules you define. Hazel can also manage your trash and uninstall your applications.
Organize your files using a familiar... Read more

Tor Browser Bundle 7.0.6 - Anonymize Web...

The Tor Browser Bundle is an easy-to-use portable package of Tor, Vidalia, Torbutton, and a Firefox fork preconfigured to work together out of the box. It contains a modified copy of Firefox that... Read more

Mellel 4.0.1 - The word processor for sc...

Mellel is the leading word processor for OS X and has been widely considered the industry standard for long form documents since its inception. Mellel focuses on writers and scholars for technical... Read more

Videobox 4.2.3 - Download Flash video th...

Videobox allows you to quickly and easily download Flash video from most all of the popular video sites on the internet. Videobox will convert the video into a native Quicktime format so it's ready... Read more

Apple iBooks Author helps you create and publish amazing Multi-Touch books for iPad. Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All... Read more

OmniFocus 2.11 - GTD task manager with i...

OmniFocus helps you manage your tasks the way that you want, freeing you to focus your attention on the things that matter to you most.
Capturing tasks and ideas is always a keyboard shortcut away in... Read more

Path Finder 7.6 - Powerful, award-winnin...

Path Finder makes you a master of file management. Take full control over your file system. Save your time: compare and synchronize folders, view hidden files, use Dual Pane and full keyboard... Read more

Latest Forum Discussions

The much anticipated space exploration game, Morphite, has finally arrived, and we can't get enough of it. The game is essentially everything we wanted No Man's Sky to be. It's a game that puts a heavy focus on exploring foreign worlds, but the... | Read more »

The best visual novels on mobile

Narrative games have been around for ages, but only now have they been creeping into the mainstream spotlight. These games tell some of the industry's finest stories, and they break new ground in terms of gameplay and mechanics regularly. Here are... | Read more »

The best new games we played this week -...

It's pretty much been one big release after another. We were privy to a bunch of surprises this week, with a lot of games we'd been waiting for quite some time dropping unexpectedly. We hope you're free this weekend, because there is a lot for... | Read more »

Stormbound: Kingdom Wars guide - how to...

Stormbound: Kingdom Wars is an excellent new RTS turned card battler out now on iOS and Android. Lovers of strategy will get a lot of enjoyment out of Stormbound's chess-like mechanics, and it's cardbased units are perfect for anyone who loves the... | Read more »

The best AR apps and games on iOS right...

iOS 11 has officially launched, and with it comes Apple's ARKit, a helpful framework that makes it easier than ever for developers to create mobile AR experiences. To celebrate the occassion, we're featuring some of the best AR apps and games on... | Read more »

Nothing raises excitement like a good competition, and we’re thrilled to announce our latest contest. We’ll be sending one lucky reader and a friend to the Summoners War World Arena Championship at Le Comedia in Paris on October 7th. It’s the... | Read more »

Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story...

Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $2.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)
Description:
Another Lost Phone is a game about exploring the social life of a young woman whose phone you have just... | Read more »

The Witness (Games)

The Witness 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
Price: $9.99, Version: 1.0 (iTunes)
Description:
You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you.
You don't remember who you are, and... | Read more »

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macOS High Sierra Brings Powerful New Core St...

Apple has announced the release of macOS High Sierra, the latest Mac operating system, as a free update.
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QuickerTek Announces External Battery For USB...

QuickerTek has announced their USB Type-C Most Versatile eyeBattery, claimed to be the only product of its kind, featuring the USB 3.1 adapter cable necessary to power and charge the 2015-2017... Read more

How to save $200 or more on a new 15-inch App...

B&H Photo has the new 2017 15″ MacBook Pros on sale for up to $200 off MSRP. Shipping is free, and B&H charges sales tax in NY & NJ only:
– 15″ 2.8GHz MacBook Pro Space Gray (MPTR2LL/A... Read more

9-inch and 12-inch iPad Pros, Certified Refur...

Apple has Certified Refurbished 2016 12″ WiFi iPad Pros available starting at $589. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each model, and shipping is free:
– 32GB 12″ iPad Pro WiFi: $589... Read more

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